Batman Dracula is a 1964 American film that was produced and directed by Andy Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman serials, Warhol’s movie was a “homage” to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.
Andy Warhol,Dracula, 1981, Polacolor 2 print. Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine. Gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., The Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program
Fun fact: in 1974, Andy Warhol produced a film called Blood for Dracula. Art and film come together in an amazing way with this production.
Andy Warhol: Since you know all these cases, did you ever figure out why people really murder? It’s always bothered me. Why.
Alfred Hitchcock: Well I’ll tell you. Years ago, it was economic, really. Especially in England. First of all, divorce was very hard to get, and it cost a lot of money.
Source: filmmakeriq.com
Lou Reed, Nico, Bob Dylan, and Edie Sedgwick in Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests (1966), which were originally conceived as “living portraits” (i.e. portraits done on film rather than on canvas) and featured silent, unbroken 3-4 minute shots of both famous & anonymous visitors to Warhol’s studio sitting in front of the camera.
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On May Day, just after leaving her fiancé, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale wrote a note. “He is much better off without me… I wouldn’t make a good wife for anybody.” Then she crossed it out. She went to the observation platform of the Empire State Building. Through the mist she gazed at the street, 86 floors below. Then she jumped. In her desperate determination she leaped clear of the setbacks and hit a United Nations limousine parked at the curb. Across the street photography student Robert Wiles heard an explosive crash. Just four minutes after Evelyn McHale’s death, Wiles got this picture of death’s violence and its composure. The serenity of McHale’s body amidst the crumpled wreckage it caused is astounding. Years later, Andy Warhol appropriated Wiles’ photography for a print called Suicide (Fallen Body).
by irving penn
Yves Saint Laurent photographed by Jeanloup Sieff, 1971.
Yves Saint Laurent by Andy Warhol
I guess it’s fair to say: Coco Chanel gave women freedom,
Yves Saint Laurent gave women power.
Le smoking originale. 1966.
Yves Saint Laurent “Mondrian” dress
Yves Saint Laurent, 1963.
Yves Saint Laurent, 1962
Yves Saint Laurent at the Finale of Yves Saint Laurent s/s 1997 with Claudia Schiffer
The world would not have this little gem were it not for Valerie Solanas and her 1968 attempted murder of Andy Warhol and her Swiftian* SCUM Manifesto. Made in 1971 it comes across as super angry, bitchy and funny.
The plot focuses on three women (played by transgender actors) who band together to get ‘libbed’ forming P.I.G (Politically Involved Girlies). As a group they are pretty light on opinions and the ability to articulate any coherent political or feminist ideas.
There are times where it gets shrill. Lots of floppy balls and limp wiener in this one. Thanks Andy! Speaking of our boy, he acts in it, in costume, looking crazy. Also … Candy Darling could burn some film with her face and charisma.
*Can you really say that a piece of writing that calls for murdering men satire when you have in fact tried to gun down two of them for ‘controlling your life’?
Andy and Candy
“There is one thing I must tell you because I just found it to be a truth … You must always be yourself no matter what the price. It is the highest form of morality.”
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Candy Darling—(November 24, 1944 – March 21, 1974) was an American actress, best known as a Warhol Superstar. A male-to-female transsexual, she starred in Andy Warhol’s films Flesh (1968) and Women in Revolt (1971), and was a muse of the protopunk band The Velvet Underground.
‘Candy Darling on Her Deathbed’, photographed by Peter Hujar, 1974.
